disaster. you choose. >> from msnbc, i'm sam waters ton. thanks for watching. a no-brainer for boehner. let's play "hard ball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start tonight with this. snb's got to break it to mr. boehner. your side lost. romney, remember him? he's the guy who ran on the rich man's platform.

he's the guy who said to fellow 2%ers, got your back. told the other 47% to go fly a kite. they look this decision directly in the eye. they heard the president blaring away about the need to hit the 2%. they heard your guy playing palace guard and they said i think i'll vote for the guy who's looking out for the middle class. time for mr. janer to stop defending his rejected politics, stop talking about the rich and threatening more fights to defend them. the fight was clean and clear. trying to do what the people leektded them to do. join the managing director. 47%. both are msnbc. like the way i lowered my voice there? today the president took his tax pitch to the factory in the nilly suburbs and made clear the rich must pay their fair share meaning they must go up to the

top 2%. a tax cult for 98%. the rest of the people, let's listen to them. >> it's not acceptable to me and i don't think it's acceptable to you for a handful of republicans and congressman to hold tax cuts hostage simply because they don't want tax rates on folks to go up. right? that doesn't make sense? the senate has already pass add bill to keep the taxes from going up on the middle-class families. that's already passed the senate. you remember congress, they're ready to go, they're ready to vote on that same thing. and if we can just get a few house republicans on board, we can pass the bill in the house, its wi it will land on my desk, and i am ready. i've got a bunch of pens ready to sign this bill. >> and 30 minutes after the

president was finished, john boehner held a press conference. he gave a pessimistic assessment of the negotiations. let's listen to mr. boehner. >> let's not kid ourselves. but when i come out the day after the election and make it clear that republicans will put revenue on the table, i took a great risk. and then the white house spends three weeks trying to develop a proposal and they sum one up here that calls for $1.6 trillion in new taxes, calls for not even $4 billion in cuts, and they want to have this extra spending that's actually greater than the amount they're willing to cut. i mean it was not a serious proposal. and so right now we're almost nowhere. >> let me start with -- let me start with joe jan on this thing because you and i often agree.

this whole thing here, i just think boehner has never accepted the fact that the rates have to go up at the top. i mean they're talking about deductions and all this finesse, they lost this debate. if there was any issue that came out, the president was dead right. he mads he statement clear. the public wants to have some tax fairness. they don't want the top 2% to hold this thing up. boehner doesn't want to hear that. why not? is he unable to hear it? does he not want to hear it? or is he afraid of his own people in the party, the people this that sort of ideological zoo up that that won't let him do what he wants do which is cut a dam deal before christmas? >> i think it's the latter. it could not be a cleaner case for republicans defending only the tax cuts for the top 2%. this is very clear. mitt romney tried to parse it and say, well, maybe we'll get revenue from capping deductions, maybe we'll go after the mortgage interest or some other deductions.

that was litigated. they lost. this was simple and clear to everyone that 98% of those tax cuts could go through tomorrow, today, an hourks any time that boehner got out of the way, but he still got the rejectionist in the lame duck caucus and i'm afraid it might come at the speakership that he'll have to re-up for on january 3rd. he's still got to talk the tea party talk even though he knows it's a losing proposition. >> the fact of the matter here is let's talk politics. why is the political party hosting it put all its stock in 2%? >> well, you're dealing with reality. the reality -- >> yeah. >> no. the tea party caucus of the house went from 55 to 51 to 52. >> they're not rich people, these tea party people. >> it doesn't matter. they're against taxes because they think it fuels government and they're against government. they're against compromise --

they're particularly compromised with this particular president for a whole host of reasons. we have the same dynamic. we had back in 2011 when john boehner, i think, left to his own devices would cut a deal with the president in five minutes. >> let's stop for a second. i think they're darn serious. who knows what the world's going to react to this. we don't know. we don't know. forget the market. the world economy doesn't know. my question is this. would the republican party like to go over the cliff hanging onto that 2% rich people and say that's why they did it? can they live with themselves if they do it? >> they have -- in some ways the politics for boehner becomes easier. i don't like to call it a cliff. after they go down the slope. >> why? >> because if nothing happens between now and the oerchd the year, all the tax cuts, puff, they disappear. you come back the first week in january and you pass a bill and

then the tee partiers, boehner can make the argument to them if twhanlt to be reasonable. now you're voting for a tax cut. not for everyone but for 98%. before that happens the tea party people will say we're voting to raise taxes on the research. if you're voting to let it happen on its own -- >> do you people buy that story? they know what the mechanics of this thing are. >> let me finish one second. the tea partiers have to worry, some of them,ing being challenged from the right if they vote for anything resembling a tax hike. if you wait till after the slope hits you can say it's not a tax hike. so that -- >> i think you're really playing down the intelligence of people on the right, that they don't know -- >> i'm not giving a lot of credit. >> you know -- >> they know what a tax increase is, whatever it is. they also know what a fiscal cliff is. they disagree with that. they do worry. if everybody is watching us in

the world -- we disagree on this. if the country goes o down and the rich are blamed for it, i think that's why a lot of rich people on wall street are saying to boehner, stop already. we're loaded up here. move on and don't screw up the economy because we're going to lose a lot more money if this market crashes to a second great recession. >> chris, i think the market has priced it in. >> no, you're right. >> i think they have. for a little while. not six months. >> who are you talking to? i keep talking to -- who are you talking to -- >> i spoke with a source the other day in washington, a lawyer. >> a lawyer? >> la lawyer. but he spikes to a lot of people that are wall street types. he says the market could take it. >> the cake is baked and they think the politicians up to the challenge. >> wall street doesn't have a lot of faith in this process to be able to get done so they've priced in a little bit that this could happen for a while.

you wouldn't see the market crash the next day. you'd have time. >> thank, you joy reid. it is a cliff. >> how they thank had this baby won. also did republicans lose the election because voters rejected mitt romney or did they lose because voters rejected what mitt romney iwwas saying h believed. for an oath birther like louie, the election's finally over. believe it or not, two political parties that were both modern and moderate, that was a long time ago. we're going to talk about that, the days of eisenhower. this is "hardball," the place for politics. ♪ if it wasn't for you

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there's a reason that romney seemed confident. it showed them they were on the brink of victory. but it was of little resemblance to the people who actually showed up to the polls. the new magazine has an illustration of it. they returned the poll numbers from the romney camp leading up to the november 6 election. in iowa the campaign numbers showed them tied with obama. in reality obama beat them by about 6 points. actually 2 p.5. in new hampshire romney's polls had him ahead by five or three rather. these are like nine-point differences. it also showed the internal numbers were off in wisconsin, and it shows even more clearly why their confidence peeked right before the vote. over the last wecht the romney numbers showed romney gained strong momentum.

in wisconsin he lost 4 points as romney gained 4 tied up the race. in new hampshire obama lost four while he gained three. he was talking to romney's sun tagg. as the results were coming in, quote, he looked like he was in a complete state of shock as if these numbers cannot be real. to make matters worse, florida and virginia, two states romney lost, he was told were in the bag. john braybender is an adviser to rick santorum. i want to start with you, john. you're on the inside. you know something about this. do you understand how somebody would think that the electorate that's going to participate in 2012 in a general election with barack obama, an african-american, a democrat, and a relatively popular president would create a different electorate than one in

2010 or pry mire situation? >> as you know, every poll starts with an assumption. here's who we think is going to show up and vote, therefore that's who we ask the question of. romney -- not just the republican campaign but republican pollsters all across the country guessed wrong. we didn't see the intensity that was there for the president, particularly among young voters wchl overs . we oversampled male white voter. you add that all together and you're going to see two, three, four-point differences. and the assumption is incumbents are not going to pick up points on election day. >> i think that's right. let's get to first one. perceptions about the enthusiasm level. we thought -- you and i were talking about the last leekz. you could see well before the election of 2008 the excitement for barack obama. i felt it mooits. rallies and all the speeches. this time around it was an effective excitement. it wasn't wow, wow, wow, we love his speeches. the speeches by obama weren't

great but it was effective. it was for other reasons they voted. what was that? how come it wasn't palpable that he wasn't going to get the same voting as he did last night. >> well, it was joel beens ton. it was clear as nate compiled it. i think john's right about it. there was an assumption inside the party that there was going to be a different electorate. you can't not explain simply by what your electorate was going to be those crazy momentum numbers that you showed that last weekend. there was something else wrong with that polling. >> what do you think it was? was it the getting together with governor christie and that great show of bipartisanship? was it the fact that your side couldn't push the benghazi issue that they were pushing for some weird reason before that? what changed the last week for obama? >> i think sandy changed it a little bit. they let the president be president. i think it helped.

>> i would also say this race was more of a referendum in some way on mitt romney than it was the president and that's unusual. >> did your side -- i know you're a true believer and i respect that. i mean it. do you think they didn't really believe he believed? >> no, i don't think that was the problem. i think the bigger problem was two things. they never personally connected with him. they never felt this attachment and didn't see him as this person. that's his personality. secondly, i think we failed midd middle-income blue collar voters who feel we no longer understand their daily life and that we think it'sal about the social issues and fighting the tax breaks for the wealthy. >> i know. my dad's a regular republican, not a right winger. he e said the trouble with my party is they care about the big corporations too much, like ge used to always point to it. look at this. romney's senior adviser defended his campaign this week in a big article he wrote.

he said the campaign had the right had but failed to communicate better to hispanics and women, oh, my god. they communicated all right, quite well. >> i think we should have done a better job reaching out to women voters. the governor has a great record on women's issues. we should have done a better job and we should have done a better job reaching out to hispanic voters. we should have done it earlier and in a more effective way and looking forward those are questions for the party. we have a good message there. we need to do a better job i would argue that the message got out fuor akin and mourdock. it shows single women were really turned off. they liked the looks of romney in the first debate. a lot of numbers showed they liked what they saw and then they go, oh, this other stuff is scaring me away. that's what i think. >> i don't think the structure

changed even after the first deba debate, even if the president turned in the same kind of performances the second and third time around. he reached out to hispanics. he talked about 11 million people self-deporting. he talked about illegals. he did everything he could so that was critical to the republican presidency wouldn't be there. the most extraordinary thing he wrote is our ideas carried the day. well, they didn't carry election night and that's what kouchblts. >> i don't thifrg so. i think voters are aware of what carries. look. speaking outside, ted cruz, a real hero from the tea party. here's what he said. you want to know why obama won 75%. tone. i think far more important was 47%. republicans nationally, the story they conveyed was that the 47% are stuck at a static world.

we don't have to worry about you. i cannot think of an idea more an threat calm well, that's a strong state. did he mean the 47 thinking or the fact that david corn and "mother jones" got that out and said that down there? >> i think part of it is we let them -- >> was it about looking down on people? >> i think what happened is early on the obama people did a good job with the perception that mitt romney was not george bailey. he was mr. potter. >> right. >> then we said narratives that confirmed that to people. >> lionel barrymore. >> we kept do that as a party. we have to let everybody know we understand their lives. failed in 2010. but we can do well again. >> the banker's eye, right? tip of the ice. your thoughts, bochblt is it just the personality? the guy looked like an elitist, cold-hearted guy that would say

no to you when you went to the banker's window? >> yes. i'll tell you. he's right. what happened in the summer is the obama campaign brilliantly went out and defined mitt romney. 189 years after he lost that campaign to senator kennedy, he budget ready for those bane adds. i found it inexplicable that he didn't have some kind of come back. i mean mitt romney -- >> bob, you taught him the lesson the first time. bob shrum, have a nice recommend. thank you. and john braburn. up next, congressman louie. what a piece of work he is. he's out there suggesting the obama administration -- how can you repeat this stuff -- is in cahoots with the muslim brotherhood. this is malarkey. malarkey is a good word. love me. ...but most dry foods add plant protein, like gluten

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back to hard ball. now the side show. first after president obama and mitt romney got together for their post election lunch yesterday jon stewart ooe respected on the event with help from the '80s movie "coming to america." >> we do have footage of governor romney arriving to the white house. believe that's him there, that's him getting out. the campaign is over, so he double have to pretend anymore. he can finally ware that serengeti lion sash he hadn't been wared. >> also i've heard from republicans who are ditching grover norquist's no tax pledge? from the office of u.s. congressman gibson in new york, quote, representative gibson signed the pledge in 2010 for

the 20th congressional district. congressman gibson doesn't plan to re-sign it for the 19th. as joy reid said yesterday that's like breaking up with someone by changing your phone number. also tonight, the apps way, the smartphone super pac app providing fact-checking. which came out in the love category? thank obama care, pants on fire, and yosemite sam. here it is. >> there's not going to be a part of, again, socializing health care in the state of texas. ♪ >> the ip being what that is will be a board that will tell you, bob, whether your level of productivity in society is worth

rereceiving the rash of care as a result of obama care. ♪ i'll be unhappy if i let you go ♪ >> anyway, the ad that got most votes in the failed category was the one called "join our fight to repeal obama care" from consumer pack restore our voice. that's "hard ball" for next. coming up next, "your business with j.j. remain be jchlj.j. ra. " two years ago, the people of bp made a commitment to the gulf. twenty-three r billion dollars to help those affected and to cover cleanup costs. today, the beaches and gulf are open, and many areas are reporting their best tourism seasons in years. and bp's also committed to america. we support nearly 250,000 jobs and invest more here than anywhere else.

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